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White House Sweats, and He’s the Cause

WASHINGTON — Michael Strautmanis had no sooner started his White House job as a deputy assistant to the president when his boss began badgering him.

“Am I working out? Am I eating right?” Mr. Strautmanis recalled President Obama asking. “And then he told me that I should use his trainer.”

The very fit president has sent other White House aides to Cornell McClellan, the trainer, a genial master tormenter who is the secret weapon behind Michelle Obama’s famously toned arms and who has overseen both Obamas’ exercise programs for more than a decade.

Mr. Strautmanis made one — and only one — appointment with Mr. McClellan, just to satisfy the president. But Mr. Obama had other plans.

“And that’s when I knew this was going to be a different experience for me,” said Mr. Strautmanis, who has forsaken cheeseburgers, taken up egg whites and lost 20 pounds since he started twice-weekly sessions with Mr. McClellan in a gym at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

An unassuming 54-year-old with a compact body and an easy laugh, Mr. McClellan has become the unlikely man at the center of a group of top staff members who work out with him, gossip with him, talk about him and even rat one another out to him, especially when someone — that means you, David Axelrod — slips up and gets an extra scoop of ice cream in the White House mess. (But the real culprit, aides joke, are the M&Ms found throughout the West Wing).

“He has this gift where he works you pretty hard and you don’t even realize it,” said Mr. Axelrod, a former senior adviser to the president who shed 25 pounds on Mr. McClellan’s watch. “And then you go home and you can’t lift up your arms.”

Mr. McClellan grew up practicing martial arts, eventually earning a black belt, and as a college student realized that he had a knack for working with people. He owns Naturally Fit, a personal training and wellness center in Chicago, and now spends part of his week in Washington at Mr. Obama’s request.

“It was an easy sell for me, because I thought of it as kind of a duty, to serve the president,” said Mr. McClellan, who works out with the first couple, often in the early morning, at the gym in the White House residence. Mr. and Mrs. Obama both try to exercise for at least an hour every day, and Mr. McClellan says he usually sees them two to four times a week, depending on their schedules.

The president, a well-known fitness buff, does a mixture of cardio and strength training and spends his free time playing basketball and golf. “He is very motivated and he loves to work, so that makes it very easy for me,” Mr. McClellan said.

People who have seen Mr. Obama at the gym, wearing black wind pants and a dark baseball cap, say that sometimes he and Mrs. Obama work out together, and that he runs hard on the treadmill, with the television tuned to “SportsCenter” on ESPN.

In the gym, Mr. McClellan, a father of six, seems to be one part gentle, prodding father and one part drill sergeant. “I believe in working people as hard as possible, but as polite as possible,” he said, laughing.

Photo

Cornell McClellan, at his Chicago gym, trains President Obama and many aides, some of whom are more willing than others.Credit
Peter Wynn Thompson for The New York Times

“It’s not boot campish or militaryish from day one,” he added, “but it can go there.”

His clients can be divided into two camps — the enthusiastic and the grudging, White House staff members say. The president and the first lady are the star students — eager, dedicated, with the toned limbs to prove it.

Tommy Vietor, a National Security Council spokesman, and the speechwriter Jon Favreau are competitive, and Mr. McClellan sometimes pits them against Sam Kass, a young White House chef. Mona Sutphen, a deputy chief of staff who recently left the administration, and Lisa Brown, the staff secretary, are hard core, naturally fit and athletic exercise partners who push themselves. And Mr. Axelrod, Mr. Strautmanis and Pete Rouse — the president’s senior adviser, who is considered Mr. McClellan’s crowning achievement, having overhauled his diet and lost 20 pounds since his early, reluctant days — are the whiners who crack jokes and make conversation, anything to avoid sweating.

“There will be lots of e-mails or hallway chatter of ‘Did he make you do that insane thing and now you can’t walk?’ ” Mr. Vietor said.

Though Mr. McClellan claims his shop is a gossip-free zone, staff members say they unwind there, talk about their families and get to know about the personal lives of their fellow gym rats.

“Cornell knew better what was going on in the White House than most people who worked in the White House,” said Lawrence H. Summers, who recently left as one of Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers. “Who’s up, who’s down, which way things are moving. Everybody talked to Cornell.”

Some of the best gossip involved Mr. Summers himself. One day, he forgot his exercise gear and began working out — shirtless — on the treadmill. A frantic e-mail quickly made its way to the West Wing: did someone — anyone — have a shirt Mr. Summers could borrow? Mr. Strautmanis, whose office is nearby, ran one over, but the incident quickly became White House lore.

“There was a brief interval of that,” Mr. Summers confirmed, before adding, gamely, “I liked it better when I didn’t have to see how in shape some of the president’s younger aides were.”

Mr. McClellan has conspired with Mr. Strautmanis’s assistant, who now orders his boss only healthy food from the White House mess. “He has spies all over the White House,” Mr. Strautmanis joked. “He’s got us surrounded.”

Mr. McClellan, sounding gleefully conspiratorial, put in another way: “You kind of team up and say, ‘Hey, make sure they’re doing this.’ It’s really good when you can have a support team.”

Mr. Obama has offered to buy personal training sessions for his most recalcitrant staffers. (So far, no one has taken him up on the offer, according to several staff members.) Mr. McClellan would not say what he charges, only that his rate “varies.” One staff member said he paid $60 per session.

Some aides joke that the president feels guilty about having brought Mr. McClellan all the way to Washington and is trying to help drum up business for him. But the Obamas are health conscious themselves, and aides say they care about the well-being of their staff.

“They both know how hard their staffs are working, so they really want to encourage some sort of balance,” said Susan Sher, Mrs. Obama’s recently departed chief of staff.

Aides say they do not need to feel guilty about leaving their desk to work out. Not only is it acceptable to do so during lunch or an afternoon lull, it is considered beneficial for people’s sanity.

“As a friend,” Mr. Axelrod said, the president “has always been on my butt about this, and as a result, my butt is a little bit smaller.”

He and other White House clients have helped introduce Mr. McClellan to their lifestyle, as well. For Christmas, they pitched in and bought him an iPad. Since he spends much of his day in the gym, they explained, they thought he would want to be able to get online and check his e-mail.

A version of this article appears in print on February 28, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: White House Is All Sweaty? He’s the Cause. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe